i was messing around with the

withTimeout

function and found that if I put a loop, it does not trigger the timeout cancellation exception but if I use a delay statement for the same amount of time, then it triggers the catch block. Could anyone explain why?

Because the loop is just a CPU spin. You either need to use runInterrupt or whatever it's called or check isActive. Cancelation is cooperative.

oh thats interesting, thanks!

runInterrupting will send a Java thread interrupt to the thread if the coroutine is cancelled while it’s blocked. If your legacy code doesn’t support interrupts, or provide its own cancellation api, I think you’re out of luck.